I’m in a weird place right now. I want to do so many things, but my health won’t let me. I’m stuck in a waiting period and I feel restless and frustrated. I’ve been burned out for so long that the minimum amount of stress trigger both anxiety and fatigue. I have to do this ‘creativity comeback’ in small steps, even if I want to do so many projects simultaneously and just get lost in the amazing flow that I’ve missed so much.
Missing you is bittersweet. While it’s painful at times, I wouldn’t want to be without it. When you are in a situation or a relationship where you don’t feel the sensations of missing somebody, you end up missing the missing – so it must be a good thing after all.
If you liked “The Jinx” and the “Serial” podcast, here is one of my favorite documentary series and a very fascinating murder mystery – “The StairCase”:
Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker, Jean-Xavier de Lestrade, presents a gripping courtroom thriller, offering a rare and revealing inside look at a high-profile murder trial. In 2001, author Michael Peterson was arraigned for the murder of his wife Kathleen, whose body was discovered lying in a pool of blood on the stairway of their home. Granted unusual access to Peterson’s lawyers, home and immediate family, de Lestrade’s cameras capture the defense team as it considers its strategic options. “The staircase” is an engrossing look at contemporary American justice that features more twists than a legal bestseller.
I’m feeling low. The world seems to be falling apart somehow. Climate change, capitalism, terrorism, racism, crime and people’s indifference and ignorance. I don’t understand it. I’ve been so focused in my own problems and inner wounds and I haven’t really been part of the world, until now when I’m expanding my perspective and looking outside myself for the first time in a very long time – but I do miss the comfort of my own little universe. I’m happy and proud to be an artist because I can create magic and alternative worlds, both as a comfort and escape from the real world but also as a reminder of what is part of this world if you change your perception a little bit. I can create meaning to pain, to make it worth it, I can play with paint and human emotions to make people feel something, through their numbness or hopelessness. I can share my human experience and connect with the world through my art. And that is a beautiful thing. Especially in a world where it’s hard to connect, I mean on a deeper level.
And through that connection, something pure and magic is born. My art is nothing without that connection. With my art I am creating meaning to people’s emotions, pain, fear and sorrow, and they create meaning to me and my life with their response and understanding. Magic is not a fantasy but in the realness of things.
I feel sad when I see how disconnected people are, from themselves, each other and the world. And they don’t even notice it. We think we are connected because of social media and the mainstream culture. But it’s just an illusion. The only thing people are connected to is to their own self image and lifestyle. Nothing of true substance or meaning.
The best thing that’s happened to me was to lose everything last year, in the break up, when I became broke and ‘homeless’. It forced me to look deeper into myself and what I wanted from life – and from myself. I discovered that I was disconnected to many things and in many areas in my life, so it was easy to let go of them. Dreams, ideals, fantasies, lifestyles, self images and even some styles and techniques in my art. Losing everything also made me more humble and grateful for the things I do have. And for who I am.
Now I am connected to everything in my life and I don’t waste time on things and people who can’t connect with me or who I can’t connect to in some way. Where there’s a disconnection there is also lack of understanding, empathy, respect and acceptance.
To be disconnected from oneself makes it so much harder to connect with the world and to other people. It’s easy to feel a sense of foreignness to emotions and feelings if we can’t connect with them, and that makes us numb and unresponsive to things and people around us. We become isolated in our beliefs and opinions. Narrow minded and closed off. Indifferent and dispassionate. It’s easy to hate when you are in that state, you hate whatever doesn’t fit your own narrow and tight view on what the world should look like.
I wish this was something that most people understood so they could work through their personal issues and feel more connected and comfortable in themselves and in the world and then act in a more tolerant and empathetic way.
We are all warmblooded, we all have beating hearts, so there is no need to fill our minds with coldness and unnecessary intolerance.
A frosty view of the big cemetery outside my studio window
It’s Monday morning and the world outside my windows is covered with frost and ice. I’m just a week away from start working with my art again. I feel excited. It’s been such a long journey to get to this point where there is nothing that’s standing between me and my art, nothing but my own confidence.
I wrote this in May 2014:
“Dear art.
Its been a while since I wrote a letter to you. But this time I have something important to tell you.
I can see how I have forced myself upon you, how I’ve tried to use you to make money and how brutally I have treated you because I’ve been too stubborn and my ego is too big. I know I’ve been hating you, even wanting us to part forever. I’ve used my frustration to push you away because the pain has been unbearable at times.
And the fear of losing our dear fans. I know the world is patiently waiting for us to work together again, and they don’t mean to put a pressure on us, but sometimes I’ve felt like I have disappointed a whole world with this disconnection between us. I love our fans and I want to show them the magic we can create together – but most of all I want us to FEEL the magic when we create, you know. It’s something intimate between only you and me.
My life is changing so fast right now, and I am shedding skin. What we had, what we did, I know we can never come back to. And I don’t want to go back. Instead, the future is ours to explore. I want to use all this change in our work, what do you say? I feel like we can meet in a new place, share our intimate moments in a different space, far away from old mistakes and expectations from the world.
I miss you so much, and I need you. My life is not complete without you. I am so sorry that I’ve treated you like a money machine, I know that you are so much more than that, we are beyond superficial things like money and fame. We want to express the complexities of the soul, we want to burn, we want to scream of all the love and pain inside!
No more cute, big eyed, doll stuff, that’s so done. We need to explore our talents in a new way. Whatever will be will be, and I know it’s gonna be amazing, can you feel it?
I love you, even if I’ve hated you too sometimes.
I hope to hear from you soon.
/Mia”
I feel like a completely different person now. I live in my new skin, I have a new voice and a new confidence. It’s been almost 7 years since I felt like I was working with my art and it was fun, and not a struggle. I feel like I am coming home after a very long and painful journey. But I have learned a lot about myself and my art on this journey, and I will use it as a guideline in my future career. I just feel grateful to be here. I am in no hurry but I’m not gonna procrastinate my projects anymore. I have one last week of this meditative state before I start using my new voice in my art. It’s a beautiful process, and it’s all part of being an artist in the world – the struggles, the creativity, the flow, the pain, the success, the solitude and the love of spiritual freedom.
From my inspiration folder, I have an artist’s crush on Charlotte Rampling’s eyes.
I’m feeling restless and impatient. I want to get started with new art projects but I feel stuck in between two worlds. Since I’ve been so focused on my inner journey and creating a new life for myself in these last few years, I haven’t been focused on my art and it’s a strange process to switch focus from one world to another – like searching for Narnia in a dark closet behind a collection of fur coats. I need to relax my consciousness, to reach a meditative state – and dive into my own Universe. I have to isolate myself a little, I have be quiet and introvert without feeling pressured to be social or expressive. I will search for silence and solitude. That’s where I’ll find everything I need to be able to ge started and into the groove and the mood for having fun with my Lolita demons again.
I have never felt closer to my creativity and art before. I haven’t been feeling like this for 10 years, but even then I didn’t feel this connected to my creativity like I am now. No wonder I’m feeling a little impatient!
I’ve made a plan how to achieve my artistic goals. I’ve reconnected with my creativity after the long hiatus, I’ve cleaned the palette, emotionally and mentally, I’ve killed darlings and gotten rid of old mannerisms that doesn’t fit me as an artist anymore. I am ready. Ready for so many things. I want to build a new collection of works, I want to restore my career and to do it all differently. I want to do this the right way – where I have all control and not letting gallery owners or bad self esteem control me. I don’t want to compare myself to other artists or older versions of myself where I felt successful, I want to make the art I want to make and I don’t care to judge it or listen to other people’s opinions of it. This is MY gift, MY career. I will start from scratch but use my past experiences and successes in this new process to guide me right. I have a new life, peace of mind (for the first time in my life) – my mind is not clogged with PTSD and trauma, I have a much better self-esteem now, I have a new voice that I want to use in my art and I have a clearer vision of what I want to achieve.
I will take a couple of weeks to gather strength and collect energy, before I start this new artistic journey. Before I completely commit myself to what I was born to do. I can’t wait.
It’s a new time in my life. I don’t know what to write about here anymore. There is no past to deal with. I don’t want to think about the future, I want it to be an extension of the now, not anything more or less than that. I’ve learned that it’s no use, to think about the future. It is nothing but a collection of moments and minutes, unexperienced and unknown to any of my senses.
I use to be filled with chaos and fear, but I feel at peace right now. Where there was chaos is now nothing but white skies and I can finally breathe again without inhaling the ashes of my past. I’ve found clarity within myself. Now, it’s the world outside myself that is filled with chaos and fear.
I won’t abandon the themes of fear, rage and emotional destruction in my work. It is too important, too relevant and I still have a lot of unexpressed emotions inside me, that won’t come out any other way. The world is a beautiful place, but filled with inexplicable evil and unfailing darkness.
Paris and I know a similar pain, because terrorism is just like abuse – it doesn’t follow any logic or reason. I wasn’t attacked in my marriage when we were fighting, I was attacked while I was in my bed, naked, and asleep – or when I felt relaxed and happy. The shock of violence, terror and hate is bigger when there’s no warning, no sign of danger.
That is why it is important for me to keep painting the darkness, because, unfortunately, it isn’t fiction but real.
One year can make all the difference in the world.
My studio, ready for new adventures
I’ve been so focused on building a new life and my new relationship this year, I haven’t really been in a place where it’s just me and my creativity. But now, I have laid the necessary foundations and they are stable. I find myself in a new place of peace and relaxation. Now, it’s time to just enjoy life and the results of the hard work and all my achievements. I will go back to making art again, and this time I feel a genuine drive, not an anxious struggle to find my way back to my creativity, I’ve already found my way back. I’m ready and so god damn inspired. I will continue my artistic journey in three phases; painting/digital art then a writing phase and then perhaps a combination of the two. I can’t wait to get started. This creative process will take years, and I am in no hurry to achieve all my goals, but I will. I feel so happy, and not at all scared or lost as I’ve felt throughout the last 6 years. Now I’ll shift my focus, from rebuilding my life to creating art and making all my dreams come true.
Was it all just a dream? The highway is covered in a light fog. The late autumn landscapes outside the bus windows are blurred and blended with my own reflection in the glass. The trees are bare and I feel just as naked and raw on the inside. I’m so tired and sick with the flu. I want to go home and sleep, but it’s a long ride and I feel uncomfortable in my seat. My heart has a sour feeling to it. I want to cry but I know if I do, I won’t be able to stop. When we said goodbye at the airport, I thought my heart would physically break. After you went through security and you disappeared from my visual world, I felt numb and went to a café and had a sandwich for breakfast, watching your plane vanish into the grey sky.
Missing you is harder now than before you came here. It was easier to miss you like a fantasy than as a reality. And your scent has already faded from my memory.
Was it just a dream? You came here and changed my life. It was almost two weeks of pure intimacy and love. We were being silly, laughing from our cores, citing Girls and creating adventures with our imagination. Exploring each other and ourselves like we were on spiritual safari. Two weeks felt like one single long and wonderful day – even though I got sick and you had to spend some time taking care of me. It was the first time we shared the same time, and it was confusing and that confusion helped us create our own sense of time, where days and nights were blending and bleeding hours, minutes and seconds. We used our heartbeats and time as oxygen. We didn’t need anything else.
When I got home to my empty apartment, I started to doubt it all. Was it all just a dream? The long trip to the airport and back had detached me a bit from the experience of you and I felt numb and the fever didn’t help. I went to bed and looked over at the empty side next to me where you slept and I could still feel your presence in my bed.
So – was it just a dream? I have never experienced something like this before. Good things rarely happens to me and I still don’t have any words to describe all the feelings you create in me. It will take me a long time to be able to find the right shades of red to paint what I am feeling. I want to go back to painting, soon. You inspire me to create, especially with your writing. I know we will collaborate together at some point. My future is filled with unexplored excitement. I am overloaded with unexpressed words, brush strokes and colors. I need you and I need my art.
We are not a dream, but what we share is a gift that will keep creating more and more opportunities for us to grow, experience life, creativity and love, together- and in a way, that is a dream, even though it is as real as life itself.
I miss him already…
Our last Saturday night together
Persona
Watching Crimson Peak – beautiful but full of clichés
Johnny
Dinner
Amazing fan art! I’m surrounded by my own characters…my babies… Look at them…aaaww.. I love it! Thank you Todd!
I have the most generous and talented friends. I’m so grateful.
(click image to enlarge)
I’ve been so happy these last few days since Johnny came to see me, but the shadows are always lurking behind me telling me that I don’t deserve all the good things that are happening to me. But I’m fighting it. I am just tired of fighting stuff like that. Happiness is happiness, it doesn’t come with any shadows. I wish I could just get that.
Only two hours now until I’ll know the nature of your scent. The only thing about you I can’t imagine when I close my eyes.
MIA MAKILA 